


get out of my international figure skating competition

by horsehorsecollier



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Crushes, Festered Fish, Friendship, I'm Sorry, M/M, Multi, Whiskey smash, copious swearing, helsinki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horsehorsecollier/pseuds/horsehorsecollier
Summary: In which Yuri isn't the only one who left an impression in the ballet camp all those years ago.Inspired by a post on otayuriism dot tumblr dot com! Keep on slaying, queen!





	get out of my international figure skating competition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [otayuriism](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=otayuriism).



> Hey y'all! What can I say it's just a tiny drabble while I procrastinate literally everything else!!!! So my priority in this was 'write it as quickly as possible, don't make any unforgivable grammar errors, don't pass out because you're exhausted from ur party last night.' With those in mind, it might be shit, but it's shit I gladly give you all <3 Love all of you, and hope you're having an awesome beginning of the summer (Unless you're from the southern hemisphere, in which case, lmaoooo, sucks to suck, hope you're having an awesome winter!!!)

Snow is falling into the briny, choppy harbor water, and Yuri doesn’t want to eat his fucking fish.

It’s the most vulgar thing he’s ever laid his eyes on, second only to the hideous displays of public affection he’s witnessing across the table. It’s gray, and slimy, and smells like his socks after a conditioning day. This kind of shit is maggot food, not human food.

Otabek nudges him with his elbow. “You look like you want to kill the fish.”

“I do.”

“You can’t. It’s already dead. And maybe it’s not that bad.” Otabek had the common sense to order a perfectly palatable soup-in-a-bread-bowl, so he has no room to talk. “You should eat it.”

“I will not eat this fucking—geese shit,” Yuri complains, poking it with his fork. A mucous layer sticks to the tongs. Ugh. “It’ll effect my performance.”

“Yuri, you’ve already won gold.”

“I meant my performance as a living human being,” he says with narrowed eyes.

Otabek laughs quietly into his fist. Yuri has come to realize that he really, really likes it when he makes Otabek laugh, or when Otabek laughs at all. That still doesn’t mean he’s going to eat his fish, though.

It’s the night after the exhibition skate for the Helsinki Worlds. Although it’s a mildly brisk 0 degrees and a wet snow is falling lightly, Yuri’s immediate group of friends still decided to go out into the night, and wandered and wandered until they found a pretty harborside restaurant.

And so here they are—is it twelve or eighteen of them? —basking in the warm light, eating (except for Yuri, who regrets everything), laughter ringing in the air, half of them drunk as sailors—

“Viktor and Yuuri are _old news!_ ” exclaims Christophe Giacometti, hitting the table in his enthusiasm. “Let’s hear about the _friendship of the hour,_ Yuri Pee and Otabek!”

He’s one of the drunk ones.

Apparently, though, alcohol isn’t a requirement to agree with his idea, as the entire table (even _Guang-hong Ji_ ) cheers.

Yuri scowls. “We’re friends, yeah?” he says. “So what? There are lots of friends here. You and Viktor are friends.”

“Yes, but you’re _Yuri Plisetsky,_ ” says Christophe, fanning his hands out before him dramatically.

“And you’re _Christophe Giacometti,”_ Yuri mimics. “You’re so fucking drunk. I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“You’re unapproachable!”

“Well, fuck you too!”

Otabek laughs into his fist again, and the resultant smile that pops up on Yuri’s face sort of calms his fire against Christophe a little. But then fucking Viktor, who somehow has lost his undershirt without losing his normal shirt, and who he’s pretty sure has his entire right hand shoved down the back of his fiancé’s pants, leans over Chris.

“Ignore Chris, he’s very drunk,” slurs Viktor, clearly drunk. “What Chris is _trying_ to say is, how did you two become friends? What’s the—oh, baby, what’s the word in English…” He turns to Yuuri, also drunk, who says something in Japanese. “Oh, right, Yurio is Russian! He speaks Russian. Yurio, what’s the _backstory?_ ”

Yuri shrugs. “I was getting chased by my Satan fan club, Otabek saved me, we realized we actually get along pretty well, end of story.”

“Boring!” slurs Chris. “I want gossip! Something ripe!”

Yuri quirks a brow. “You want gossip? How about the Mila Sara Mickey Emil situation?”

“No, no,” Phichit cuts in. “We’re saving that for when _everyone’s_ drunk and has opinions. Give us a nice appetizer for when we’re only tipsy!”

Otabek nudges Yuri again, this time with a tiny smirk. “Well, it isn’t the first time we met.”

“There we go!” says Phichit triumphantly. “More now!”

He rolls his eyes, and Otabek goes on to explain: “I met him years ago at a ballet camp. He was a lot better than me.”

Yuri shoves him right back. “Okay, don’t modest me, my ass, you’re pro at martial arts.”

Otabek gives him a small, almost shy smile that lives on the corner of his lips. “But you became my inspiration,” he says; just to him, he knows, not to the group.

Yuri feels something very curious inside his chest. He’s not used to such genuine compliments; the feeling is warm and welcoming like a hearth on a midwinter’s night, the opposite of his festered fish.

“He also completely ignored everyone at the camp, since no one else was nearly as good,” Otabek addresses to the skaters.

“Typical Yu-ra-tchka!” Mila calls from the back off the table.

He can’t be annoyed; he’s too concerned that she must be drunk enough that she didn’t hear his comment on her and the Crispino twins and Emil. He decides to reiterate his point—maybe that will snap her out of it. “Fuck off, old woman!” he yells. “Go have another foursome!”

“I am, tonight!” she yells back gleefully. So, not too drunk then.

Fuck. “Fuck,” he says. “Otabek. Beka. That really backfired, fuck, I _really_ didn’t need to know that.”

Wordlessly, Otabek slides over his untouched whiskey smash.

Yuri’s eyes widen, and they’re probably glittering with delight, honestly. Fuck ballet class backstories, badass motorcycle rescues, and genuine emotional connection: _this_ is exactly why he and Otabek are friends. “No one is allowed to give you shit about being a bad influence, yes? You’re my favorite.”

Then, because he prides himself on being an alcohol-tolerant Russian, and also because he just won a gold medal, he downs half the glass in one go. “Fuck!”

“Yuri, slow down,” Otabek says with a worry-laced tone.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, yes! I won’t drink any more for now. I just need it to, ah, kick in.”

He waits a few seconds, eyes watering and nose wrinkled at the intense burn all down his throat. He feels like a _man._

So he downs the other half. “ _Fuck!”_ he says, more emphatically. He’s probably going to puke, and he doesn’t even remember why he drank it in the first place. But a proud little pit in his stomach tells him it was totally worth it.

“Yuri!” Otabek pulls the glass away from him, even though it’s useless, since it’s already empty. “Why did I give that to you? Why did I think that was a good idea? What did I think would happen?”

“Hmm.” Yuri hums, and pats Otabek on the shoulder. He doesn’t trust his throat not to catch on fire if he tries to speak.

As the minutes pass, Yuri increasingly sees the lure of alcohol. Everything seems simpler (but blurrier), and much less gross. He hears Viktor, Yuuri, Chris, and Phichit drunkenly plan a foursome that will put Mila’s to shame, and it doesn’t activate his gag reflex. Even his fish seems kind of appetizing now. The suspicious feelings in his chest when he’s around Otabek seem much less suspicious—and on the topic, that dredges up a memory!

Yuri slams his palms on the table. “I just remembered something,” he announces triumphantly.

“Is it your patronymic?” says Viktor, gasping. “Because I still want to know.”

“No!” he says. He pokes Otabek on the cheek. “At that ballet camp, right? I just remembered. I had a, uh, crush! On a random boy there. Who sucked at ballet.”

Chris gasps. It sounds just like Viktor’s, which is a little scary. “This is ripe gossip!”

Yuri ignores him. “And I didn’t know how to. Uh. What to do about it! I didn’t really know it was a crush. And I was really angry. So I wrote a note, and didn’t sign it, and stuck it in his locker.”

Yuuri and Viktor and Chris and Phichit and JJ, who, damn, Yuri didn’t even notice him there, all lean in conspiratorially. “And what did you write on it?” Phichit whispers.

“Get out of my class!” Yuri says.

The five fools burst into laughter, punctuated by ‘typical Yuri’s, but—wow, when did he and Otabek get so close their arms were pressed together? –he feels Otabek completely freeze. What? Did he say anything? He can’t piss Otabek off; this is the only time they’ll get to spend together for months, unless they visit over the summer.

To remedy this, he pokes Otabek’s cheek again. It’s kind of squishy, which is kind of adorable, which Yuri swears he didn’t just think. “Are you okay, Bekaaaa?”

Otabek opens and closes his mouth several times, silently, like a fish, which is a metaphor Yuri regrets, since fish are gross and he hates them and he definitely does not hate Otabek.

“That was you?”

Yuri stares. Otabek stares back. His eyes are inkier than the black night outside. Poetically, Yuri thinks he could jump in those inky eyes and swim in all the unwritten words they hold. Lovely, lovely, dark dark brown.

Then he realizes what Otabek says.

“Oh. Fuck off. Like, shit.”

::::

At 2 AM, Yuri stands out on the balcony of his hotel room. He’s not tipsy anymore. The soft snow has changed into a fine cold mist that stings his cheeks.

It wasn’t all too awkward after the truth of life came out that Yuri had the hots for his close friend Otabek when he was ten. It will probably go down in their own history, right? Their embarrassing backstory.

No, what makes it awkward, and the reason that Yuri is standing alone on the balcony at 2 AM while Otabek, Leo de la Iglesia, and Guang-hong Ji are passed out in his room (and Georgi, too, is for some reason passed out in the bathtub) is that he’s increasingly sure that having a crush on Otabek isn’t a past tense thing.

It lines up. It’s like understanding a choreography, or piecing together evidence with red yarn in crime shows. It’s a crush. He has a crush on Otabek. He kind of wants to die—but not really, you know, since those kinds of things are no joke.

He stares out over the rippling lights of Helsinki, through the black misty night, feeling like the festered fucking fish in his very soul.

What is he going to do, write Otabek a note saying ‘Get out of my professional international figure skating competition?”

 


End file.
